Welcome back to my Behind the Scenes with Lisa B Draws blog. By sharing my experiences so far — and the ups and downs of life in publishing and illustration — I hope to answer some of the questions I had when figuring out how to become a children’s book illustrator and author. I hope you enjoy reading this next instalment.
Early Beginnings: Discovering a Love for Art
Hello again and firstly I think it’s only right for me to apologise for the massive delay in getting blog number two out to you!
All I can say is that life has very much got in the way of writing it and I only have myself to blame for launching a blog directly before the summer holidays whilst I am in the throws of illustrating two books. Lesson learned.
Anyway, talking of lessons learned, publishing is one of those things where you are constantly on a lesson learning journey.
My journey started a long time ago and if we go right back to my first discovery of drawing and storytelling then I suppose it goes back several decades.
My more notable successes have been more recent and then you’ve got all the
other important bits scattered in between.
As always though, I believe it’s always best to start from the very beginning…
Getting Started
I have always been obsessed with using my imagination to create new worlds and characters. My mind is almost always preoccupied by thinking and this thinking usually manifests itself through drawing. I would draw for hours as a child and would very often opt to sit and draw during wet play at school, rather than join in other activities with my friends.
So, I guess art in some form was always destined to play a huge part in my future. I always did incredibly well in art and received a lot of praise from teachers and my peers, which to be honest I always found a little weird, as I never really put in much extra effort.
Obviously, the natural progression through school was to choose art as one of my options at GCSE and A-level and I had an incredible art teacher who taught me so much about the art of drawing
and painting and also more importantly that “there is no point in a blunt pencil!”
Some of those early doodles eventually became the foundation of the animal characters you’ll now find featuring in my illustrated prints and gifts in the Shop pages on lisabdraws.co.uk
Finding My Way at Art College
After school the next part of the pathway was to go to art college. It was here I learned that although I like clothes it doesn’t mean I am any good at designing them (in fact far from it) and that product design should be left to people that like chairs, like a lot (there were a lot of chairs in that end of year show).
I also learned that although I believed that Graphic design
was for me it was actually illustration that fulfilled me the most and I’m so thankful to my tutor for suggesting one day that I might be better off sitting at the other side of the Graphic Design and Illustration studio. It was there, at the other side of that studio, that I learned that I loved illustration.
The Turning Point: Illustration at Loughborough University
Next came university and with it, you guessed it, a lot more learning. It was at this stage that I learned that you do not have to go to London to do an illustration degree. There are plenty of universities offering great illustration courses and I just happened to pick (I think) the best
one of all. Loughborough University.
At the time the Loughborough course was up there with the best of them and as a result it was incredibly difficult to get in to. But, through sheer grit
and determination, a portfolio of solid work and an uncanny ability to talk about myself when I absolutely needed to, I managed to get one of the very few spots available and therefore had sealed my fate for the next three years.
Illustration at Loughborough was, I believe, the turning point for me where I realised this could become a career and not just something I loved to do in my own time. Today I still get that same excitement when creating spreads for my children’s books and prints, which you can explore here.
Determination and Learning to Make Mistakes
I learned that sometimes you have to undo everything you have previously learned in order to find the real “you”. They stripped us right down to basics in that first year. Removing colour from our arty
worlds, forcing us to look much closer at the world that was actually around us to truly appreciate texture, pattern and form. Year two was about rebuilding the illustrator inside of us using the foundation that we had re-built in year one.
It was this second year that I struggled with. I found it hard to “let go” of the things I had already learned about illustration. Petrified of making “a mistake” I clung onto the ideas I had developed prior to starting university and in some ways it let me down. From going from a first in year one I crashed (in my eyes) down to a 2:2. I was devastated. I found it hard then to understand why this had happened. I’ve come to understand that I shouldn’t have thought about it in this way. So many people said to me “it doesn’t matter” but in reality it did. It really did matter because I was learning, and in order to learn you have to make mistakes.
Choosing a path
Year three was where I, despite my course leaders’ difference of opinion, decided I absolutely wanted to become a children’s illustrator.
They suggested I try something different to children’s illustration for my final show, so I designed some travel book jackets for adults and made them look like they were for five-year-olds anyway. We held an exhibition and I thought it was wonderful to see my work displayed amongst my illustration studio family. It wasn’t perfect, but I was proud and I felt like I was actually doing it. I was becoming an Illustrator. I came away with a 2:1.
Happy with that, I left university with a spring in my step and a newfound confidence in my ability to adult.
Becoming a Children’s Book Illustrator
I had a plan and I was going to take over the children’s book world (I’d seen Julia Donaldson do it, how hard could it be?!). I was going to write amazing stories, all the publishers will love to work with me because I’ve got great ideas and I work super hard.
If I sold two or three books a year I would earn a decent wage while doing my dream job. I’d raise a family with my free time, live in a nice house and my life would be simple. I’d learned everything I needed to learn to at least make a start. Right?
I was a children’s book author and illustrator. I was ready to write and I was ready to illustrate!
Only it would seem that the children’s book world wasn’t quite ready for me.
TO BE CONTINUED …
Have you ever thought about writing or illustrating your own story? I’ll be sharing more lessons in part two — stay tuned and be sure to follow my socials for updates.